The Korean manufacturer highlighted in the press release the performance improvements that the new Exynos 5 Octa offers over the model that was first introduced in January, and especially the graphics prowess of the ARM Mali powered chip.

Folks at Engadget visited the SIGGRAPH 2013 trade show where they got the chance to compare a 10-inch reference tablet powered by the new Exynos 5420 chip with the Nexus 10, powered by a dual-core Exynos 5 Dual processor codenamed 5250. Both devices were set up to run the same benchmarks, and suffice to say you don’t have to be an expert to tell them apart. For the record, both devices have the same resolution of 2560 x 1600.

The benchmark used is the T-Rex test from the GLBenchmark 2.7.0 suite, which is designed to assess the graphical computation capabilities of mobile systems on a chip. The two competing GPUs are an ARM Mali T-628 in the case of the Octa and an ARM Mali T-604 in the case of the older Dual.

While it’s trivial that new tech is better than old tech, the Exynos 5 Dual is still a modern, highly-capable piece of silicon. The fact that the new Exynos 5 Octa outpaces it so categorically speaks volumes about the advancements in GPU tech that ARM and Samsung made over the past year. We look forward to see how the ARM Mali T-628 GPU does against the Imagination PowerVR SGX544MP3 GPU inside the first Exynos 5 Octa chip, the 5410.

Samsung says the Exynos 5420 is currently being sampled to clients and that mass manufacturing should begin in August. That means that mobile gamers will get to try out the first devices powered by new Exynos 5 Dual, including smartphones, tablets, and Chromebooks, starting this fall.

There’s no denying that smartphones are becoming pretty powerful; quad-core processors are now the standard in high-end handsets and clock speeds are creeping up into laptop territory as well. However, the one big problem that mobile technology still faces is the limitations imposed by running processors on a battery.

With the likes of the Exynos 5 Octa and Snapdragon 600 offering pretty much all the power you’ll need in a smartphone, the next big battleground is likely to be fought over power consumption. New architectures like big.LITTLE demonstrate that chip designers understand the problems associated with increasingly power hungry processors, but it’s hard to tell which chip manufacturer actually has the best energy efficiency.

Fortunately for us, ABI Research has conducted some tests which not only look at the peak performance of the current top of the line chips, but also the average and peak currents drawn under various conditions.

The results

The test included some of the top of the line handsets and tablets using some of the best performing processors currently available on the market, the Intel Z2580 CloverTrail+-powered Lenovo K900 smartphone, Snapdragon 600 and Exynos 5 Octa versions of the Samsung Galaxy S4, the dual-core Exynos 5250 Nexus 10, and finally the Nexus 7 which utilises the Nvidia Tegra 3 chip. You can take a look at the results table below.

The results show a benchmark score followed by the average and peak current draw during the test. Intel’s chip scores highest on the most tests and draws the least current, and it’s only beaten by the Exynos 5 Octa when it comes to GPU performance.

We’re mostly interested in the CPU performance and current draw results from this test, as GPU performance is dependant on other chip manufacturers. Three of the processors scored roughly the same CPU result (around 5000) including the CloverTrail+ chip, the Exynos 5 Octa, and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600. The test pretty much matches the initial Lenovo K900 benchmark that we saw earlier this year.

Just looking at the base CPU score alone, the dual-core CloverTrail+ comes out on top by a couple of hundred points, followed by the four Krait 300 cores in the Snapdragon 600, and Samsung’s Exynos 5 Octa chip, which houses four Cortex A15 and four A7 cores, following closely behind. But the real surprise can be seen if you glance over slightly to the right: the CloverTrail+ draws significantly less current than its competitors.

The average CPU drain on the Lenovo K900 was just 0.85 amps, whilst the supposedly energy efficient Exynos 5 Octa Galaxy S4 drew an average of 1.38 amps, and the Snapdragon 600 drew a massive 1.79 amps on average. Peak current draw is even more telling, 1.05 amps peak for the Z2580, 1.71 amps peak for the Octa, and 2.10 amps for the Snapdragon 600, making the CloverTrail+ not only the fastest but also the most energy efficient processor out of these current top of the line components.

[quote qtext=”The ARM architecture used by nearly all of Intel’s competitors is well known for its low power performance but in bringing the processing power up closer to PC levels, the current drain has taken a significant hit.” qperson=”” qsource=”” qposition=”center”]

The closest competitor to the current draw of the CloverTrail+ is the rather outdated Tegra 3, which uses four ARM Cortex A9 cores rather than the newer, and more power hungry, Cortex A15 cores found in the Exynos 5 processors. But the old Tegra 3 languishes really far behind in terms of performance, scoring only half as well as Intel’s processor.

It seems that Intel has finally managed to find the right balance of power and energy efficiency after some dubious performance results with its previous Atom chips. But we’re still waiting to see more handset manufacturers implement Intel’s processor technology.

BayTrail will be even better

With high-end smartphones pushing the performance and energy boundaries, Intel seems to have found the sweet spot. But if consumers continue to demand more performance, then Intel’s next line-up of BayTrail chips could provide real competition to ARM’s processors.

Intel is already promising significant performance and energy improvements over the current Saltwell cores used in its CloverTrail+ SoCs, which would put the Silvermont-based BayTrail even further ahead of the current top of the line offerings from Samsung and Qualcomm.

In fact, as the Exynos 5 Octa is designed to be Samsung’s flagship processor, the company could see itself falling significantly behind Intel in terms of raw performance for the first time in the smartphone business. Similarly, Qualcomm will have to rely on its upcoming Snapdragon 800 processor to compete with Intel’s next-gen chips, but we’re currently unsure exactly how well that chip will perform.

Intel’s new Silvermont architecture will supposedly double its peak performance over Saltwell, but will consume only a quarter of the power whilst in a low-power mode.

Similarly, with BayTrail set to be even more power efficient than CloverTrail+, ARM based processors are going to have to find significant improvements in energy efficiency in order to compete. The only thing holding CloverTrail+ back at the moment is the lack of an integrated LTE solution, which is an important feature for high-end markets. However, the new BayTrail Atom SoCs will be shipping with integrated LTE bfore 2014, which could see Intel finally get some decent market share in the mobile processor buesiness.

If Intel manages to capitalise on this growing gap in battery efficiency whilst offering top of the line performance and a fully integrated SoC, then I can definitely see consumers flocking to Intel-powered handsets to reap the benefits of improved battery life.

]]>http://www.androidauthority.com/intel-clovertrail-competitors-224786/feed/26Dual-core ARM Cortex-A15 faster than Intel Atom and quad-core Cortex-A9http://www.androidauthority.com/dual-core-arm-cortex-a15-is-fast-135978/
http://www.androidauthority.com/dual-core-arm-cortex-a15-is-fast-135978/#commentsMon, 03 Dec 2012 11:42:22 +0000http://www.androidauthority.com/?p=135978When Apple released the iPhone 5 it didn’t contain a quad-core CPU as many people had expected, however Apple did claim that the new phone was up to twice as fast as its predecessor. The most likely reason that Apple could make such a claim is that its A6 CPU uses the Cortex-A15 architecture. With the recent release of Google’s new Chromebook, which is powered by Samsung’s Cortex-A15 based Exynos 5 Dual (Exynos 5250), the benchmarking gurus have now had a chance to really test the new architecture from ARM and the results are amazing.

The Exynos 5 Dual is a dual-core 1.7 Ghz Cortex-A15 CPU that boasts a 12.8 GB/s memory bandwidth. We already know that it is faster than Apple’s A6 but more recent tests run on the Chromebook using the Phoronix Test Suite show that the CPU is faster than Nvidia’s quad-core Tegra 3 and at least two different Intel Atom models (the N270 and the Z530).

Since the Chromebook can be made to run Ubuntu, it means the Linux-based Phoronix tests can be executed on the same OS and attempt to use a level playing field. This means the results should be more accurate when compared to more subjective browser based tests like the Sunspider benchmark.

In the tests the Exynos 5 Dual was pitted against the quad-core Tegra 3 running at 1.4Ghz, the single-core Intel Atom N270 running at 1.6Ghz along with its cousin the Z530. These first three CPUs didn’t pose any real threat to the Exynos 5250. However some more worthy opponents were also thrown into the ring: the dual-core Intel Atom D525 running at 1.8Ghz and the 2.13Ghz Core i3-330M.

So how well did the Exynos 5250 perform? The test suite includes many different types of real-world and computational benchmark tests and in general the Exynos 5250 is upto twice as fast as the Tegra-3 and three times as fast as the two single-core Intel Atom chips. It is also roughly on par with the dual-core Intel Atom D525. However when compared to the i3 CPU the Exynos 5250 has a long way to go, but that isn’t surprising since the i3 is running at over 2GHz and, although called a mobile processor, it isn’t really suitable for the same applications as the ARM based chips.

Taking the real-world H.264 video encoding test as an example, the Exynos 5250 manages 10.62 frames per second, the Tegra-3 8.13 fps, the N270 and Z520 can do 5.08 and 4.93 fps respectively while the D525 marginally beats the Exynos 5 Dual with 11.61 fps. The i3 easily beats the rest with 38.84 fps.

For pure computational tests the Exynos 5250 is beaten only by the i3. Under the Monte Carol flops (floating-point operations per second) test, the Exynos 5250 managed 167.9 Mflops, the Intel chips (N270, Z530, D525) managed 47.98, 48.2 and 65.15 Mflops and the i3 stole the show with 260.62 Mflops.

Since the Exynos 5 Dual is starting to enter into more mainstream devices, like the Nexus 10, it looks like the Exynos 5250 is the processor to beat.

Part of the joy of being involved with open source software is being able to see a project being worked on in near real time. Kukjin Kim, who is a Senior Engineer on the Software Solution Development Team at Samsung Electronics, recently left a comment on the Linux kernel Git page that says:

“This patch adds support for EXYNOS5440 SoC which is including ARM Cortex-A15 Quad cores.”

Thanks to that one sentence, we now have confirmation that Samsung is working on a quad core ARM Cortex A15 chip that’s going to be called the Exynos 5440. We don’t really know anything else about the chip, which makes us kind of sad, but let’s speculate anyway, shall we?

First things first, we already know a lot about the Exynos 5250, the “slower” dual core variant of the Exynos 5440. It has two ARM Cortex A15 processors clocked at 1.7 GHz, it has a quad core ARM Mali-T604 GPU, and it’s built using 32 nanometer technology. Because this newly discovered Exynos 5440 is called the 5440 and not the 5450, we’re going to assume that it’s not two times as fast as the 5250. We’re also going to assume it’s not going to be built on 32 nanometer technology.

Does that mean the Exynos 5440 is going to end up inside a smartphone? Again, we can only assume. We know 1080p screens are going to be an essential feature of 2013 smartphones, and in order to drive such a high resolution display, you need a lot of horsepower. But four ARM Cortex A15 processors? That’s a bit insane, unless Samsung built said chip with 28 nanometer technology.

As you can probably tell by now, we really don’t know what to tell you. We want to say all will be revealed in Q1 2013, but even then, we’re not sure if that’s when Samsung is going to announced the Galaxy S IV.

The new Samsung Chromebook (sold out in hours after being put on sale yesterday) is remarkable not only thanks to its low price of $249, but also due to the processor that powers it – an Exynos 5 Dual.

The Exynos 5 Dual (Exynos 5250) is the world’s first mobile processor built on ARM’s new A15 architecture. For the 5250, Samsung paired a dual-core A15 CPU clocked at 1.7GHz with a Mali T604 GPU, which is another premiere. T604 is based on ARMs Midgard architecture, some of its marquee features being the support for unified shaders, OpenGL ES 3.0 and OpenCL 1.1 full profile. In other words, Samsung has combined the best CPU available with the best GPU available, and both are designed by ARM, which provides the advantage of superior integration. For more about Exynos 5 Dual, check out our full overview here.

Now, with all the processing power that Samsung packed into the Exynos 5250, we were dying to see how the new chip performs. Fortunately, Kevin Tofel from GigaOM put the Exynos 5-powered Chromebook through some benchmarks, to see how it fares against the prior model, which runs on an Intel chip. Predictably, the Intel chip performs better, but what’s more important are the scores obtained by the Exynos 5 Dual chip.

Exynos 5 Dual benchmark scores

Tofel ran several benchmark suites on the new ARM Chromebook. Here are the benchmarks and the scores:

SunSpider: 668.5ms (lower is better)

V8: 3871 (higher is better)

Octane: 3465 (higher is better)

Now that we have these scores, let’s compare them to the main competitors of the Exynos 5 Dual chip: the A6 chip in the iPhone 5 and the Atom Z2460 in the Motorola Razr i.

Exynos 5 Dual (Samsung Chromebook)

Apple A6 (Apple iPhone 5)

Intel Atom Z2460 (Motorola Razr i)

Snapdragon S4 (HTC One X)

Tegra 3 (HTC One X)

SunSpider

668.5

908

1086.6

1608

1737.7

V8

3871

1533

2209

1507

1162

Octane

3465

1672

2048

1280

1131

* The benchmark scores listed above are courtesy of AnandTech.

As you can see, Samsung’s latest chip handily beats the previous leaders, with the difference being especially visible in the SunSpider test. For some perspective, consider that the iPhone 5 is the first device to complete SunSpider in less than 1000ms. At 668.5, the new Exynos just smashes that record.

SunSpider, V8, and Octane are all JavaScript tests, so results may vary when using other benchmark suites. Still, it’s impressive to see what Samsung was able to achieve, and we are looking forward to see what the Exynos 5 Dual can do in next year’s Samsung Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3.

Samsung has just released the whitepaper for their long-awaited Exynos 5250 SoC, now called the Exynos 5 Dual, and there’s a lot of interesting information to be discovered in it.

The Exynos 5 Dual will be the world’s first Cortex A15-based chip, when it will ship later this year, presumably inside the 11.8-inch tablet Samsung is going to launch later this year. Samsung had to wait for this A15-based chip to support the very high WQXGA (2560×1600) resolution of the Galaxy Tab 11.6.

Some of the most important features of the newly unveiled Exynos 5250 are:

Let us take you through the most important features of the new Exynos 5 Dual.

Cortex A15

Cortex A15 is the next generation of ARM CPUs, arriving to replace the Cortex A9 design at the high-end of the scale. In a way, the Exynos 5250 will compete with Qualcomm’s S4 chip, based on the Krait design, which is a next-gen design as well, although with slightly less performance per clock than Cortex A15. This follows the same pattern of the first Snapdragon chips (S1, S2, S3), based on the Scorpion design, which also had slightly lower performance than Cortex A9.

Qualcomm’s advantage was that, in both cases, then and now, they came first to market with the new designs. But when the Cortex chips came out, they were able to match and exceed the performance of Qualcomm’s custom design chips.

It seems that history will repeat itself with the dual-core 1.7 Ghz Exynos 5 Dual arriving on the market and competing with Qualcomm’s dual core 1.7 Ghz S4 chips. Qualcomm will also have a quad-core 1.5 Ghz S4 Pro chip later this year, but it will be the same story as with the dual-core S4 vs the quad-core Tegra 3 chip comparison from earlier. I expect the Exynos 5 Dual to beat the quad core S4 Pro in performance for all single threaded apps, with the S4 Pro gaining a slight advantage in multi-threaded apps.

Mali T604 GPU

What’s nice about Exynos 5 Dual is that it doesn’t come just with a next-gen CPU, but also a next-gen GPU. This is a fortunate match, as they are both designed by ARM itself, so they benefit from higher integration, and also because ARM changes its GPU architecture only once every 5 years. So Mali T604 is the very first GPU design based on the new Midgard architecture, with unified shaders, OpenGL ES 3.0 and OpenCL 1.1 full profile.

We’ve already discussed that the OpenGL ES 3.0 specification is meant to help developers create more visually impressive games on mobile devices, that should even surpass current-gen consoles soon. OpenCL, or the Open Compute Language, is meant to give developers a way to harness the power of the GPU to enhance what the CPU can do, while making the whole assembly [...]]]>

Samsung has just released the whitepaper for their long-awaited Exynos 5250 SoC, now called the Exynos 5 Dual, and there’s a lot of interesting information to be discovered in it.

The Exynos 5 Dual will be the world’s first Cortex A15-based chip, when it will ship later this year, presumably inside the 11.8-inch tablet Samsung is going to launch later this year. Samsung had to wait for this A15-based chip to support the very high WQXGA (2560×1600) resolution of the Galaxy Tab 11.6.

Some of the most important features of the newly unveiled Exynos 5250 are:

Dual-core 1.7 Ghz Cortex A15 CPU

Mali T604 GPU

OpenGL ES 3.0

OpenCL 1.1 full profile

Support for WXQGA displays

Wi-Fi display support

12.8 GB/s memory bandwidth with 2 port 800 Mhz LPDDR3 RAM support

1080p 60 FPS video performance and VP8 codec decoder

USB 3.0 support

Let us take you through the most important features of the new Exynos 5 Dual.

Cortex A15

Cortex A15 is the next generation of ARM CPUs, arriving to replace the Cortex A9 design at the high-end of the scale. In a way, the Exynos 5250 will compete with Qualcomm’s S4 chip, based on the Krait design, which is a next-gen design as well, although with slightly less performance per clock than Cortex A15. This follows the same pattern of the first Snapdragon chips (S1, S2, S3), based on the Scorpion design, which also had slightly lower performance than Cortex A9.

Qualcomm’s advantage was that, in both cases, then and now, they came first to market with the new designs. But when the Cortex chips came out, they were able to match and exceed the performance of Qualcomm’s custom design chips.

It seems that history will repeat itself with the dual-core 1.7 Ghz Exynos 5 Dual arriving on the market and competing with Qualcomm’s dual core 1.7 Ghz S4 chips. Qualcomm will also have a quad-core 1.5 Ghz S4 Pro chip later this year, but it will be the same story as with the dual-core S4 vs the quad-core Tegra 3 chip comparison from earlier. I expect the Exynos 5 Dual to beat the quad core S4 Pro in performance for all single threaded apps, with the S4 Pro gaining a slight advantage in multi-threaded apps.

Mali T604 GPU

What’s nice about Exynos 5 Dual is that it doesn’t come just with a next-gen CPU, but also a next-gen GPU. This is a fortunate match, as they are both designed by ARM itself, so they benefit from higher integration, and also because ARM changes its GPU architecture only once every 5 years. So Mali T604 is the very first GPU design based on the new Midgard architecture, with unified shaders, OpenGL ES 3.0 and OpenCL 1.1 full profile.

We’ve already discussed that the OpenGL ES 3.0 specification is meant to help developers create more visually impressive games on mobile devices, that should even surpass current-gen consoles soon. OpenCL, or the Open Compute Language, is meant to give developers a way to harness the power of the GPU to enhance what the CPU can do, while making the whole assembly more power efficient. It can be used for games, digital photography, and other things that can be done faster with parallel computing (usually graphics related).

WXQGA Displays and 12.8 GB/s Memory Bandwidth

To power a display with a 2560×1600 resolution, which is double (or four times the pixels) of what you see in Android tablets today (1280×800), you need not only a powerful GPU, but also high-memory bandwidth, so you can send all that high resolution data to the screen. Fortunately, the Exynos 5 Dual comes with support for 12.8 GB/s memory bandwidth, with two port 800 Mhz LPDDR3 RAM.

It takes a 1GB/s bandwidth to draw a 24-bit WQXGA screen at 60 FPS, but that’s just for the screen alone. Add the interface and all the icons, and the required bandwidth grows to 8GB/s. But that’s just the effective bandwidth, and when taking into account a memory utilization of 80%, you reach 10GB/s. Exynos 5 Dual has been designed with support for 12.8 GB/s memory bandwidth, specifically to support a 2560×1600 resolution.

Such high resolution displays also use a lot more power than lower-res displays. Manufacturers mitigate the increased power consumption with more efficient and more powerful GPUs, larger batteries, and more efficient displays. The Exynos 5 Dual supports a so-called PSR mode, which enables the display to use 20x less power when displaying a static image, like when reading an ebook or a web page, or viewing a picture. PSR mode should help significantly reduce the overall power consumption of the device.

1080p 60 FPS Video, Wifi Display and VP8 Decoding

The 1080p 60 FPS video might not be very useful, unless you want to record super smooth videos, but it’s great for displaying stereoscopic 3D graphics. Exynos 5 Dual is the first chip in the market to support full HD 60 FPS video decoding/encoding, and, if you have some 3D glasses laying around, you can use HDMI to stream the video from your phone to the TV, and watch the videos in 3D.

Exynos 5 Dual also supports Wi-Fi Display technology, which means you can stream the videos and everything else inside your phone, wirelessly to your TV. Wifi Display requires a lot of memory bandwidth, as it has to decode and encode the full HD videos at the same time. But Exynos 5 Dual is able to do that, all while providing a minimum of 30 FPS experience.

Google’s VP8 codec is also supported by Exynos 5 Dual, and I think we’re going to see a lot more upcoming chips supporting hardware acceleration for VP8. One of the main arguments of the H.264 video codec over VP8 was that H.264 was already hardware accelerated by many devices on the market, while VP8 wasn’t. I think Google is trying to change that, and finally bring us widely used royalty-free and open source video codecs. Exynos 5 Dual is the first step in that direction, being able to decode full HD video at 60 FPS using the VP8 codec.

USB 3.0 Support

It looks like Exynos 5 Dual is bringing us another first in the mobile world — USB 3.0 support, a standard that can reach 5Gbps transfers, ten times faster than USB 2.0. With all the new laptops coming out these days supporting USB 3.0 and SATA 3 drives, mobile devices were beginning to become the bottleneck when it came to transferring files from and to the PC. USB 3.0 support will help you transfer files in seconds rather than minutes.

Exynos 5 Dual’s USB 3.0 port can operate as either Host or Device, so besides being able to transfer files to your PC, users will also be able to connect peripherals to the device, like keyboards, controllers, external storage, LTE modems. The support for USB host will give Exynos 5 Dual devices a high amount of flexibility.

Conclusion

The Exynos 5 Dual is the chip you should look for in upcoming tablets and smartphones, as it should have the most powerful CPU and GPU of any new chips coming out by the end of the year, including the S4 Pro and OMAP 5. Next year, we can begin talking about the quad-core Tegra 4 and the Exynos 5 Quad, but, until then, Exynos 5 Dual should reign supreme in the mobile market in terms of performance and features.

I can’t speak for others, but the way I see things, one dark side to daily covering Android news is that you often feel somewhat disappointed when new devices are officially announced, especially if the device in question has generated a decent amount of hype before it is actually revealed – and that happens quite a lot. Personally, I always feel like manufacturers could take it one step further but they don’t, mainly because they still want to be able to bring a minor improvement to a line in about six months or so. But just in case you take me for too much of a romantic, let me explain!

I have a few friends that find the average retail price for top end smartphones, which is roughly $600, to be as obscene as they come, seeing as these handsets definitely do not cost more than $300 to manufacture.

Teardown reports have shown that the 8GB version of recently released Google Nexus 7 has a bill of materials of around $150, and costs around $160 to manufacture, while the Lumia 900 costs Nokia roughly $200 a piece. The new iPad costs around $320 to manufacture, and a big part of that money goes to the 9.7-inch Retina display, so a device with a sub 6-inch display cannot possibly cost more than $300 to manufacture.

Samsung Galaxy Note 2 Wishlist

Now, the next big smartphone to be unveiled is going to be the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, right? We all know the rumors, as well as the reasons why you should pass on the Galaxy S3 and get the Galaxy Note 2 once it is released. So let me ask you one question: what would be the specs of a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 that costs $400-$450 to make? Surely that would give Samsung a profit of roughly $200 for each Note 2 it sells, so Samsung wouldn’t go bankrupt, not by far. On the other hand, though, I must admit that this is more like a wishlist for the Smartphone Santa!

Display

Starting with the display, there have been plenty of rumors predicting that Samsung will use a 5.5-inch UBP (unbreakable panel) Super AMOLED Plus display on the next iteration of the Samsung Galaxy Note phablet. Recent reports also claim that Samsung is now able to manufacture Super AMOLED displays that use an RGB matrix, and feature a PPI ratio of 360.

Some believe that these new panels will skip the Note 2 and come with Samsung’s next flagship device, but here goes hoping that these rumors are wrong and that we’re bound to see a 5.5-inch UBP Super AMOLED display with a 1680 x 1050 WSXGA resolution on the Note 2! Samsung might want to be prepared in case the rumors depicting a 5-inch Verizon-bound HTC phablet expected to hit shelves at some point in early Q4 eventually turn out to come true as well.

Corning Gorilla Glass 2 on top of the display is a must, and I would be very surprised is Samsung [...]]]>

I can’t speak for others, but the way I see things, one dark side to daily covering Android news is that you often feel somewhat disappointed when new devices are officially announced, especially if the device in question has generated a decent amount of hype before it is actually revealed – and that happens quite a lot. Personally, I always feel like manufacturers could take it one step further but they don’t, mainly because they still want to be able to bring a minor improvement to a line in about six months or so. But just in case you take me for too much of a romantic, let me explain!

I have a few friends that find the average retail price for top end smartphones, which is roughly $600, to be as obscene as they come, seeing as these handsets definitely do not cost more than $300 to manufacture.

Teardown reports have shown that the 8GB version of recently released Google Nexus 7 has a bill of materials of around $150, and costs around $160 to manufacture, while the Lumia 900 costs Nokia roughly $200 a piece. The new iPad costs around $320 to manufacture, and a big part of that money goes to the 9.7-inch Retina display, so a device with a sub 6-inch display cannot possibly cost more than $300 to manufacture.

Samsung Galaxy Note 2 Wishlist

Now, the next big smartphone to be unveiled is going to be the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, right? We all know the rumors, as well as the reasons why you should pass on the Galaxy S3 and get the Galaxy Note 2 once it is released. So let me ask you one question: what would be the specs of a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 that costs $400-$450 to make? Surely that would give Samsung a profit of roughly $200 for each Note 2 it sells, so Samsung wouldn’t go bankrupt, not by far. On the other hand, though, I must admit that this is more like a wishlist for the Smartphone Santa!

Some believe that these new panels will skip the Note 2 and come with Samsung’s next flagship device, but here goes hoping that these rumors are wrong and that we’re bound to see a 5.5-inch UBP Super AMOLED display with a 1680 x 1050 WSXGA resolution on the Note 2! Samsung might want to be prepared in case the rumors depicting a 5-inch Verizon-bound HTC phablet expected to hit shelves at some point in early Q4 eventually turn out to come true as well.

Corning Gorilla Glass 2 on top of the display is a must, and I would be very surprised is Samsung doesn’t comply!

Design and Battery

Note (pun intended): The picture below is obviously Photoshopped!

Now, since the Note 2 shouldn’t be harder to pocket than the original Note, Samsung is rumored to make the bezel even smaller that it is on the Galaxy S3, which is obviously something everyone would want, especially on a phablet. Thinness is also very important so the Note 2 shouldn’t be thicker than 9mm with a 3500mAh battery, but I’m willing to let 10mm pass by in case the Note 2 turns out to feature a battery capacity of at least 4500 mAh. Anything under 3000 mAh would really be a bit of a disappointment. In terms of design, the Note 2 was often referred to as a “derivative model of the Galaxy S3”.

Internal Hardware

On to the internal hardware, Samsung said on its official website that its new Exynos 5250 chip (also known as the Exynos 5 Dual) will become available for mass production starting Q2 2012, so technically, the Galaxy Note 2 could be based on this new chipset, one that puts together a dual-core Cortex A15 processor clocked at 1.7GHz and an ARM Mali-T604 GPU – this new GPU supports resolutions up to 2560 x 1600 (WQXGA).

Since this is a Note (duh!), it will obviously come with an S Pen. But what I would really like to see is Samsung continue to bring improvements to its S Memo and S Note apps, and not settle with the minor improvements brought by the Galaxy Note 10.1. All the ‘Smart’ functions that have been introduced with the Samsung Galaxy S3 should be present as well.

Conclusion

As you can see, I’ve only talked about technology that Samsung already owns and has already begun mass producing. Almost all of the specs in my Galaxy Note 2 wishlist are possible! It is my sincere opinion that Samsung should really try to bring most of them into the Note 2 if the South Korean company really wants to manufacture a device that would not only break sale records, but also be a device that the Android community would praise.

Unfortunately, there is but a small chance that my Galaxy Note 2 wishlist will be completely fulfilled, as corporations don’t usually think much of a geek’s wishes.

We knew since last year that Samsung was working on a 2560×1600 panel for tablets. Some thought that this panel would be used for the new iPad, but it was pretty obvious Samsung would want to use it themselves as well. This is not to mention that the ratio is 16:10, which is exactly what this Android tablet has.

We’ve also heard rumors this year about a tablet that is “bigger than 10” that would have the long-awaited Exynos 5250 chip, which would contain a next-gen dual core 2 Ghz Cortex A15 CPU and a next-gen Mali T604 GPU. The Mali T604 should be at least twice as powerful as the “overclocked” Mali400 in Galaxy S3 (it’s usually how these ARM GPU’s evolve), and it’s the only chip that could handle such a high resolution (2560×1600) properly.

It should be the most powerful GPU coming out this year, and it will easily beat the upcoming Adreno 320 and whatever upgrade Nvidia does for Tegra 3’s GPU. I also see no reason why it couldn’t beat Apple’s A5X’s GPU from the new iPad as well, if it’s indeed twice as powerful than the overclocked Mali400 in Galaxy S3. The Mali400 GPU is already getting pretty close to the new iPad’s GPU. Since the TI OMAP 5 will be only 5% faster than Apple’s A5X’s GPU, it should beat it as well, but TI is using an older GPU, and it won’t be competitive in graphics features.

While all of this has been mostly rumors (except the Exynos 5250 part), the tablet itself has been confirmed by a Samsung document that was revealed in Court, which shows the existence of a 2560×1600 tablet with a 11.8″ display. The resolution is “double” (4x the pixels) that of normal 10.1″ tablets today, which have 1280×800 resolutions. The size is a little bigger, so the PPI is around 255, still very close to what Apple would want a “retina display” to be, considering the new iPad has only 9 PPI more (264).

I doubt the display is Super AMOLED, because that would make an expensive panel, even more expensive. But as long as it has a super high quality IPS/PLS display, then it should be fine. Some people may even prefer it over the alternative – a Pentile Super AMOLED. It doesn’t rule out the possibility of a Pentile Super AMOLED display, though, as Samsung’s demo 2560×1600 10″ panel was Pentile Super AMOLED.

But the real question is, would the public use an 11.8″ tablet? I remember when I first held an iPad (compare Galaxy Tab 10.1 to iPad2 above). I thought it was a lot smaller than I thought it would be, so I think there’s a market for slightly larger tablets. However, it would make a lot of sense to turn this tablet into an “ultrabook” as well when you want to, just like with the Asus Transformer devices. For such a big size, it would be great [...]]]>

Galaxy Tab 11.6 mock-up

We knew since last year that Samsung was working on a 2560×1600 panel for tablets. Some thought that this panel would be used for the new iPad, but it was pretty obvious Samsung would want to use it themselves as well. This is not to mention that the ratio is 16:10, which is exactly what this Android tablet has.

We’ve also heard rumors this year about a tablet that is “bigger than 10” that would have the long-awaited Exynos 5250 chip, which would contain a next-gen dual core 2 Ghz Cortex A15 CPU and a next-gen Mali T604 GPU. The Mali T604 should be at least twice as powerful as the “overclocked” Mali400 in Galaxy S3 (it’s usually how these ARM GPU’s evolve), and it’s the only chip that could handle such a high resolution (2560×1600) properly.

It should be the most powerful GPU coming out this year, and it will easily beat the upcoming Adreno 320 and whatever upgrade Nvidia does for Tegra 3’s GPU. I also see no reason why it couldn’t beat Apple’s A5X’s GPU from the new iPad as well, if it’s indeed twice as powerful than the overclocked Mali400 in Galaxy S3. The Mali400 GPU is already getting pretty close to the new iPad’s GPU. Since the TI OMAP 5 will be only 5% faster than Apple’s A5X’s GPU, it should beat it as well, but TI is using an older GPU, and it won’t be competitive in graphics features.

While all of this has been mostly rumors (except the Exynos 5250 part), the tablet itself has been confirmed by a Samsung document that was revealed in Court, which shows the existence of a 2560×1600 tablet with a 11.8″ display. The resolution is “double” (4x the pixels) that of normal 10.1″ tablets today, which have 1280×800 resolutions. The size is a little bigger, so the PPI is around 255, still very close to what Apple would want a “retina display” to be, considering the new iPad has only 9 PPI more (264).

I doubt the display is Super AMOLED, because that would make an expensive panel, even more expensive. But as long as it has a super high quality IPS/PLS display, then it should be fine. Some people may even prefer it over the alternative – a Pentile Super AMOLED. It doesn’t rule out the possibility of a Pentile Super AMOLED display, though, as Samsung’s demo 2560×1600 10″ panel was Pentile Super AMOLED.

But the real question is, would the public use an 11.8″ tablet? I remember when I first held an iPad (compare Galaxy Tab 10.1 to iPad2 above). I thought it was a lot smaller than I thought it would be, so I think there’s a market for slightly larger tablets. However, it would make a lot of sense to turn this tablet into an “ultrabook” as well when you want to, just like with the Asus Transformer devices. For such a big size, it would be great to have S-Pen support as well. But while these things would be nice to have, I doubt Samsung will add them, even as accessories.

When can we expect this tablet? I would’ve expected it a lot sooner, but seeing how the Exynos 5250 was rumored to go in production in Q2, then we probably won’t see it on the market until early Q4 this year. But maybe we’ll get at least a glimpse of it at Samsung’s event on August 15th.

]]>http://www.androidauthority.com/samsungs-11-8-tablet-with-a-2560x1600-resolution-104381/feed/4Intel is off to a bad start in the mobile market, and might not get to recoverhttp://www.androidauthority.com/intel-mobile-market-recover-103447/
http://www.androidauthority.com/intel-mobile-market-recover-103447/#commentsThu, 26 Jul 2012 11:12:51 +0000http://www.androidauthority.com/?p=103447

No matter how hard Intel is trying, things don’t seem to go too well for them in the mobile market. According to sources quoted by Digitimes, the sales of the Intel-based smartphones aren’t going so well, and now two of their main partners, Motorola and Lenovo, are delaying their own Medfield-based tablets (and probably phones as well) at least until November.

At that point, we’ll probably be too impressed by the new Android 5.0 Nexus devices, featuring chips like the S4 Pro, Exynos 5250 and even OMAP 5, to care for Medfield phones running Jelly Bean. So things aren’t looking too bright for Intel in the future, either. But why is Intel, such a big company with a huge war chest, and a leader in the (x86) chip market, having such a hard time entering the mobile market?

Just because a company utterly dominates a certain market, it doesn’t mean that it will be successful in other markets by default. Throwing money at the problem will do nothing, if Intel can’t create a chip that is competitive against ARM’s mobile designs.

There are other things to consider, such as the fact that ARM has a unique business model, where there are a lot of ARM chip makers, all competing with each other and on price. As a result, ARM is very hard to beat, because Intel isn’t fighting just one company like AMD, but a whole bunch of ARM chip makers at once. Plus, why would phone makers give away the flexibility and power they get from the status quo, and risk getting locked by Intel, like PC manufacturers?

So, why would a manufacturer go with an Intel chip, if it doesn’t offer any technical advantages over ARM chips? Should they go with Intel just because of its brand recognition? The Intel name means nothing in the mobile market, and most end users don’t know what chip their phone has, nor do they care.

Intel plans to release a Clover Trail dual-core chip for the end of the year and the Windows 8 launch, but that’s not a “mobile” chip like Medfield. It’s a lot less power efficient, going up to 8-10W TDP. This chip is definitely not meant for Android tablets, but for Windows 8 ones. On Android tablets, it would be painfully obvious how low the battery life is compared to other ARM tablets. But on Windows, Intel can at least say they enable desktop apps, and they need the extra oomph for running Windows.

On Android, I don’t think Intel has any chance to get popular anymore, and if Windows 8 fails in the market, things will go downhill fast for both Microsoft and Intel.

]]>

No matter how hard Intel is trying, things don’t seem to go too well for them in the mobile market. According to sources quoted by Digitimes, the sales of the Intel-basedsmartphones aren’t going so well, and now two of their main partners, Motorola and Lenovo, are delaying their own Medfield-based tablets (and probably phones as well) at least until November.

At that point, we’ll probably be too impressed by the new Android 5.0 Nexus devices, featuring chips like the S4 Pro, Exynos 5250 and even OMAP 5, to care for Medfield phones running Jelly Bean. So things aren’t looking too bright for Intel in the future, either. But why is Intel, such a big company with a huge war chest, and a leader in the (x86) chip market, having such a hard time entering the mobile market?

Just because a company utterly dominates a certain market, it doesn’t mean that it will be successful in other markets by default. Throwing money at the problem will do nothing, if Intel can’t create a chip that is competitive against ARM’s mobile designs.

There are other things to consider, such as the fact that ARM has a unique business model, where there are a lot of ARM chip makers, all competing with each other and on price. As a result, ARM is very hard to beat, because Intel isn’t fighting just one company like AMD, but a whole bunch of ARM chip makers at once. Plus, why would phone makers give away the flexibility and power they get from the status quo, and risk getting locked by Intel, like PC manufacturers?

So, why would a manufacturer go with an Intel chip, if it doesn’t offer any technical advantages over ARM chips? Should they go with Intel just because of its brand recognition? The Intel name means nothing in the mobile market, and most end users don’t know what chip their phone has, nor do they care.

Intel plans to release a Clover Trail dual-core chip for the end of the year and the Windows 8 launch, but that’s not a “mobile” chip like Medfield. It’s a lot less power efficient, going up to 8-10W TDP. This chip is definitely not meant for Android tablets, but for Windows 8 ones. On Android tablets, it would be painfully obvious how low the battery life is compared to other ARM tablets. But on Windows, Intel can at least say they enable desktop apps, and they need the extra oomph for running Windows.

On Android, I don’t think Intel has any chance to get popular anymore, and if Windows 8 fails in the market, things will go downhill fast for both Microsoft and Intel.

]]>http://www.androidauthority.com/intel-mobile-market-recover-103447/feed/2Is the Galaxy Note 2 going to be released this fall?http://www.androidauthority.com/galaxy-note-2-fall-release-89051/
http://www.androidauthority.com/galaxy-note-2-fall-release-89051/#commentsThu, 24 May 2012 18:49:28 +0000http://www.androidauthority.com/?p=89051

Because it hasn’t been more than a few months since the Galaxy Note was launched in US, you may be inclined to believe that the Galaxy Note 2 will be launched in 2013. But if we go back, we see that the first Galaxy Note was announced in September at IFA in Berlin, and then less than 2 months later it was released to the public in Europe, at the end of October.

These next-gen devices tend to be released about a year later compared to their predecessors. By now, most manufacturers should be able to make next-gen devices even after 10 months. If they think they can add more features in those last 2 months, they wait and make it easier for potential customers to know when such device is expected to arrive, if there’s a sense of predictability.

Since the original Note was announced last September at IFA, I think we can expect the next one to be announced this year at IFA as well. But they’ll probably try to separate the launch date as much as possible from the launch of their Nexus device (which might be on November 5th).

Samsung Galaxy Note 2 concept

Unless it’s launched in December or even later than that, this device won’t have Android 5.0, since they’ll want to put their skin on it, too. I believe it will have a version of Android Google which will be released at the Google I/O event. The screen size will be either the same 5.3″, with smaller body, or it will have a slightly larger screen (5.4″, 5.5″), while maintaining the same overall size. The processor should be the Exynos 5250, and I hope it will be. I’d be quite disappointed if it’s the same chip as in the Galaxy S3, unless they really want to leave that chip for their Nexus device.

Normally, I’d expect them to continue to use the Pentile screen we’ve seen in the Galaxy S3, but hopefully after they’ve received a lot of negative feedback for it, they will stop using it. I actually expect Samsung to use Pentile for quite a while, even if they stop using it in smartphones. They are still the high-resolution tablets coming up, and it’s very unlikely they will build a non-Pentile display for them, because it would be very expensive for them to build a 2560×1600 resolution display that is also Super AMOLED. It might be so expensive, they’ll just stick with PLS LCD, or some IPS display they are making (for the tablets).

I’m also hoping for an even more accurate S-pen and screen that will allow for more pixel-perfect drawings. The S-pen is already the best touchscreen stylus on the market right now thanks to their partnership with Wacom. However, I’m sure it can still use some improvements.

If you’re a potential buyer for the Galaxy Note 2, what would you like to see in it?

]]>

Because it hasn’t been more than a few months since the Galaxy Note was launched in US, you may be inclined to believe that the Galaxy Note 2 will be launched in 2013. But if we go back, we see that the first Galaxy Note was announced in September at IFA in Berlin, and then less than 2 months later it was released to the public in Europe, at the end of October.

These next-gen devices tend to be released about a year later compared to their predecessors. By now, most manufacturers should be able to make next-gen devices even after 10 months. If they think they can add more features in those last 2 months, they wait and make it easier for potential customers to know when such device is expected to arrive, if there’s a sense of predictability.

Since the original Note was announced last September at IFA, I think we can expect the next one to be announced this year at IFA as well. But they’ll probably try to separate the launch date as much as possible from the launch of their Nexus device (which might be on November 5th).

Samsung Galaxy Note 2 concept

Unless it’s launched in December or even later than that, this device won’t have Android 5.0, since they’ll want to put their skin on it, too. I believe it will have a version of Android Google which will be released at the Google I/O event. The screen size will be either the same 5.3″, with smaller body, or it will have a slightly larger screen (5.4″, 5.5″), while maintaining the same overall size. The processor should be the Exynos 5250, and I hope it will be. I’d be quite disappointed if it’s the same chip as in the Galaxy S3, unless they really want to leave that chip for their Nexus device.

Normally, I’d expect them to continue to use the Pentile screen we’ve seen in the Galaxy S3, but hopefully after they’ve received a lot of negative feedback for it, they will stop using it. I actually expect Samsung to use Pentile for quite a while, even if they stop using it in smartphones. They are still the high-resolution tablets coming up, and it’s very unlikely they will build a non-Pentile display for them, because it would be very expensive for them to build a 2560×1600 resolution display that is also Super AMOLED. It might be so expensive, they’ll just stick with PLS LCD, or some IPS display they are making (for the tablets).

I’m also hoping for an even more accurate S-pen and screen that will allow for more pixel-perfect drawings. The S-pen is already the best touchscreen stylus on the market right now thanks to their partnership with Wacom. However, I’m sure it can still use some improvements.

If you’re a potential buyer for the Galaxy Note 2, what would you like to see in it?